My Generation

It would seem, watching the current world events, that my generation has tumbled into the abyss of their own self-regard. 

I watch as a world I knew becomes something so alien, I feel we are in the twilight years. Maybe we are, maybe it will all be sooner than any of us could guess. I just know that the passion I had when I was younger, no longer seems to galvanize me into seeking truth as I once did. 

Maybe it is being a mother of young men, who have formed opinions and ideals almost separate from my own. I do see a lot of myself in them, but I also see where I have become jaded and complacent in my views, or at least in expressing them. 

I stopped writing a few years ago. I made some major changes in my life. Working full time, I find I rarely want to do anything other than come home and watch movies, or read a book, rather than keep up on social media or the news. 

Don't get me wrong. I hear, and I see. I just don't say very often anymore. I keep my views to myself for the most part Maybe age, or maybe it's because we are losing sight of what this country is that I feel the need to put this to pen so to speak. 

Our upcoming generation of voters, the ones who will one day run this country, are speaking, and we are not listening. 200 years ago, we wrote the constitution for the good of this country. We wrote laws for us to live by. We taught spoken and unspoken rules of how to behave. 

Almost everyone I know, have gone off the proverbial deep end. Every conversation I have with my best friend is over something neither she nor I can do anything about and always instigated by her. I think she baits me on purpose. It makes me think of my other best friend John, R.I.P., who's email was ybnurmal@ .... spelled that way on purpose. Nothing is normal, but John would not just bitch about it, he'd go out and do something to change it. 

I've talked about John in other posts on here. Born in Colorado, but raised in the middle east, (Egypt)  a father who worked for the U.N., and a mother who worked at the American Embassy in Cairo. He really did go out and change things. He sprayed black flies on the Ivory coast in the 80's, he worked security for a Royal household in Sudia Arabia in the 90's. He traveled, flew helicopters, fought fires. In the 2000's he moved to Biloxi Mississippi and went to Tulane. He then went on Scholarship to Uganda where he built an all-girls school in Entebbe. 

If he was alive today, I have no doubt he'd be going on the humanitarian march to Palestine, and protesting here in the U.S. He'd be fighting for immigrants, and our laws that are arbitrarily being changed. I don't see that from my generation. I see them keeping their heads down, staying under the radar. It appalls me. What are we doing. Are we really going to leave this apocalyptic shithole for our kids or will there even be anything for us to leave them. Why is my generation counting on the younger one to change things, why aren't we? 

World in Despair

 Artists create the best work from pain, yet now we are in despair 

So, what does that look like?

There are moments that define our lives, and there are moments that divide our lives. Incidents that divide us into two people. Who we were before: and who we will be after. 

Forever. 

I never thought I would see the day when we had a President who could be likened to Hitler. In 2016 his 1st term, he showed us who he was. *Is* What's astounding to me, is we put him in again. The people I know who voted for him are shocked. My question to them, is why? He did not change. He's the same corrupt person he's always been. I mean, I get why. Kamala offered no change, the same as Hilary offered none. I just don't get why "We the People" cannot see past this. The two-party system is no longer viable and has not been for several years. Capitalism no longer works.  

So, what has happened to critical thinking?  I first noticed it when arts and music programs started getting cut and core math was introduced. I fought for the arts programs in Marysville, went to city council meetings and the local news. Our education system which had already been suffering, started to suffer more. I thought I was relatively smart, but clearly naive. My kids at the time were all in choir, and theatre. They were also in an after-school bible class. Probably the only one around that was still in a school. 

In 2010, my marriage was eviscerated. This is when I started to notice everything, from school politics, to city, to state and on up. I had been as apathetic in life as I believed my husband to be. The year before, my daughter had called me from Montana. She asked me how to vote. I laughed, and said, "you have to figure out what you want for your family, and what you believe in and vote from there. I was so wrong in that statement. 

We have to look at the bigger picture. We need to care about more than just our narrow little world, because if we don't, we end up with what we have right now. 

The days collide with news changing by the second. So much is happening that you can't keep your focus on any one thing. Media and corporations are owned by government. Even in research, it's hard to discern what's truth, or lie. Propaganda. AI plays a major role on the internet, and it's contained with bias by those who have developed it. 

I recently spoke with a girlfriend of mine from Beirut. We touched a little on what is happening in the current administration. I could see the fear and hopelessness in her, even though she did not voice it. I have a young friend from Spain who I've asked if he's gone to any of the protests, and his answer was no, he is staying under the radar. I have another friend from Scotland, and the answer is the same. Keeping their heads down and paying taxes and hoping this will pass. These are just a few people, Imagine the many that are now living this way. 

 We are a world in despair.  It needs to change.